Techniques have been known that relate to visualization apparatuses. The visualization apparatuses trace manufacturing of products and visualize the tracings using logs indicating the manufacturing status of manufacturing lines in which a plurality of manufacturing apparatuses sequentially process the products. When detecting an abnormality, for example, such a visualization apparatus produces a visualization image indicating a process where the detected abnormality takes place on an image that visualizes cause-effect relations among various processes, and displays the produced visualization image.
Refer to Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2009-116842, for example.
However, it is difficult for such a related apparatus to display a visualization image that allows users to readily visually recognize abnormalities in the manufacturing status.
For example, when a processing time in certain processing is longer than a standard processing time, such an excess in processing time may indicate an abnormality in a manufacturing apparatus or may be allowable according to functions or processing capacity of the manufacturing apparatus. Thus, it is difficult for a user to determine whether the processing is in an abnormal status even though the related visualization apparatus displays that the processing takes a longer time than the standard processing time.